As Temporary as the Season

Saturday March 5, 2022

Created by Ethan Roberts

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 (NIV)

3 There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Devotion

Doesn’t it seem like you just came to college yesterday? It couldn’t be more than a few weeks ago that, while the diligent summer sun stood at attention over the ceremony, you walked through the gate as professors clapped and smiled you into your new home. Meeting your now best friend in the Main Dining Room, attending your first Christmas Festival, taking that class with the wacky professor (you know the one) . . . it is impossible that all those things could have happened so long ago.

As a child, Lent seems to last forever. You give up your sodas or chocolates (while reminding yourself that God doesn’t count when you have them on Sundays OR when you’re at grandma’s house), thinking that the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter will be interminable. Yet with age, that time seems to go quicker and quicker. The activities of life make Lent seem like any other time of year. The seasons change faster than we’d rather them do.

Lent reminds us that all life is temporary, and we humans tend to loathe what does not last. We are in a constant search for the eternal treatment, product, or idea. However, perhaps Lent is more than a mere reminder of the impermanence of life. Maybe it is also an invitation to consider that God loves what is temporary. Heaven is, I imagine, filled with the beauty of what we once disregarded due to its fleeting nature.

If God can take a whole eternity to enjoy the temporary creation of our life, maybe we can take a few 40 days to be in awe of it too. After all, doing so is always in season.

Prayer

God of Endless Life, enable us to see the wonder of temporary things and celebrate the ways you give us seasons of love. Amen.